Linfield chairman Roy McGivern labels late Irish League postponement as 'shambolic' and believes 'questions need to be asked'

Storm Darragh arrived in Northern Ireland on Friday evening, bringing heavy rainfall and surging winds which resulted in three Premiership matches being postponed on Saturday morning.

Cliftonville vs Carrick Rangers and Linfield’s trip to Dungannon remained the survivors from the scheduled 3pm kick-offs, but the former was then called off with a social media announcement made at 1:34pm before the latter was also scrapped 16 minutes later following a decision by the match referee.

The Blues had released their team for the fixture and an array of fans from both clubs were either already at the County Tyrone venue or travelling to it when confirmation came.

In a post on X, McGivern said: “Shambolic that our game is called off with some fans already at the ground and the rest on route. Questions need to be asked about why this call wasn't made much earlier.”

It’s understood that fans from as far away as Londonderry and Bangor had made the trip to watch their beloved Blues, who were hoping to extend their advantage at the Premiership’s summit against third-placed Dungannon – Rodney McAree’s side held a training session after the postponement call.

Another Linfield spokesperson said: “We’ve a lot of supporters that are already here and paid a lot of money to get here.

"The conditions in Belfast this morning were terrible and the phone hadn’t stopped from 8:30am. It’s incredible this decision has been made at 1:50pm to call the match off.

"The decision could have been made earlier. It’s not Dungannon or Linfield’s fault but a decision should have been made a lot earlier and it’s just disappointing considering the conditions were well known.

"It’s very hard to know what to do in this situation. I know in Wales they made the decision to call all matches off yesterday, maybe something like that could have been done here.

"The safety of players, officials and fans needs to be paramount – that’s the aim thing and should have been taken into consideration before making the call so late.”

All four matches scheduled in the Championship were unaffected, but only one Premier Intermediate League fixture between Coagh United and Portstewart survived from five in Northern Ireland’s third-tier.